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Again, you figure a way to do full squadrons with 3 and keep some balance with the rest of the game, let me know.

Are there any sort of sales numbers around?

Because really, before looking for embezzelment, or misappropriation or whatever, I would just assume the game isn't moving so PB is stuck with a lot of capital tied up in products that don't move.

PB obviously spent a lot on wave one and extra materials for sale. It only makes sense since Factory Time is not cheap and doing more later on would be a big cost. That is a very valid concern.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Are there any sort of sales numbers around?

Because really, before looking for embezzelment, or misappropriation or whatever, I would just assume the game isn't moving so PB is stuck with a lot of capital tied up in products that don't move.

Nope. At the moment, it's all just circumstantial. Namely (in some attempt at keeping it to a timeline)
- it being heavily discounted immediately upon release
- there being no mention of them being resupplied since the initial deliveries concluded
- anecdotal information about individual stores, or locally grouped stores
- low, but not provably trending, sales data from EBay and the like
- PB still appearing to have a substantial stock at the Open House
- PB discounting the entirety of GenCon
- PB anecdotally appearing to still have significant stock remaining at GenCon*
- PB announcing sales of GenCon Exclusives were disappointing
- PB doing "flash sales" on RRT product immediately following GenCon.

* I saw how much was there on the Thursday morning, and how much was still there Sunday afternoon, with my own eyes (anecdote!). But they COULD have been doing daily restocks from backfield storage.

None of that looks good, but it's far from hard evidence. And short of a civil suit demanding it during discovery, or bankruptcy filings, we're never likely to know. PB and KevCo seem to be private in that regards (for the most part), and there doesn't appear to be any kind of tracking system worth a damn for games in general.

Regarding direct embezzlement into pocket, or using KS funds to fund other projects, like Northern Gun, I don't think that's what happened (though I wouldn't be shocked if it were, based on prior history and them showing their "character", but I'd consider it well below probable). Regarding your last part, that appears to be the key point of contention for some people. If they've got "kickstarter capital" tied up in product that's not moving, is THAT misappropriation? Because if it's their own money tied up in the production, shipping and storage elements of what was designated "retail stock", how would that impact the reserves of the Kickstarter?

Basically, while the setup costs, and the costs to manufacture and ship the backer rewards as being legitimate expenses for the Kickstarter funds, I can see advertising post Kickstarter (including convention expenses), and the costs to manufacture and ship retail stock as a portion of the overall costs, to be questionable at best. I mean, I can understand doing a printrun of 20,000 boxes to get them at $10 per box, rather than doing two separate 10,000 runs, one for backers, one for retail at $12 per box. Same as shipping in bulk across eleven containers. Economy of scale is important. But spending only KS funds for the entirety of the single print run, then diverting half that stock to retail, with an intention to funnel part of the profit from retail back into the KS funds? Yeah, that seems like a questionable way to spend KS funds.

 Mike1975 wrote:
PB obviously spent a lot on wave one and extra materials for sale. It only makes sense since Factory Time is not cheap and doing more later on would be a big cost. That is a very valid concern.

And one that they completely glossed over to instead address the mostly mean spirited (but deserved) joking about spending it on stocks, houses, vacations, etc. Only palladium would miss the 98% of comments that worry they overspent on dead wave 1 stock to instead comment instead on the 2% throwaway comments about spending it on nefarious things.

I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).

@Morgan, good answers all.

Assuming it is not moving (it seemed the 2 game shops near me did not sell much/any in the year I was in Washington), I do feel for PB.

After all how do you predict sales on a 30 year old licenced property?

OK so the die hard fans all bought into the KS, how many more will there be when it hits the stores? Will the name Robotech and the mecha designs bring in new fans? Was the KS fanbase the beginning, or the end? Should PB have prepared for a bigger audience or just assumed that the KS backers represented everyone in the ven diagram of wargamers/modelers+robotech fans?

I don't envy someone trying to make that call.

I also really think they shouldn't have gone for 100% plastic, if they'd gone plastic/resin they could be done now.

Sure Valkyries and Destroids and Battlepods will sell enough for plastic, but Lancer IIs? Ghosts? AWAC Valkyries? Obscure Zentradi ships?

Even the Monster could probably have been done in resin. People will buy one, but that's it, they'll buy one. If by good fortune it sold tons, then revisit doing it in plastic.

But all this is Monday Morning Quarterbacking (a Monday 2 years later that).

To join in on the retrospectovision, I'd say that the initial KS was supposed to hook the nostalgia crowd but the next 6 months of "hype" before the initial Oct-Dec 2013 delivery period, seeing the game played, and people enjoying the hobby aspects were supposed to hook the next generation. Unfortunately, palladium screwed up all three of those key aspects that would have grown the game post KS.

Asterios wrote:
.
the gathering of evidence is not hard, just bring together the kickstarter and the current state law, hell I don't need a lawyer to do that with my Paralegal degree, its easy plus I have access to a legal library and my Black's Law Dictionary

So have you contacted Rick and his lawyer to offer your services? I often read about upset backers on various projects saying they're going to take legal action that will actual accomplish something, but that's about as far as they get.

fwiw, To follow up on Morgan's post, I think it's pretty common for creators to produce units for retail and backers at the same time, because it's more efficient than doing two production runs. Of course, as you cited, if the creator mismanages the project by overestimating retail demand, then he's stuck with inventory and no cash for shipping to backers nor for further production (no money left to make models for later waves). But, while it's "questionable" to spend KS funds to create retail product with the assumption that this will generate cash (heck, I thought that was SOP!), I've yet to read anything that suggests backers can legally do anything about this. But if anyone can cite any actual crowdfunding articles that specifically address this, let me know. Thanks.

 n815e wrote:
I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).

I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!

Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....

 warboss wrote:

 Mike1975 wrote:
PB obviously spent a lot on wave one and extra materials for sale. It only makes sense since Factory Time is not cheap and doing more later on would be a big cost. That is a very valid concern.

And one that they completely glossed over to instead address the mostly mean spirited (but deserved) joking about spending it on stocks, houses, vacations, etc. Only palladium would miss the 98% of comments that worry they overspent on dead wave 1 stock to instead comment instead on the 2% throwaway comments about spending it on nefarious things.

the issue I have with this is, who the hell said they bought cars or boats or stock or? I don't recall anyone saying they used KS funds for these things, for keeping the lights on and for the NG books yes, that has been speculated since it was considered very interesting as soon as they would have gotten the money from KS, they were able to start printing and shipping the NG books, like I said suspicious, especially after a 2 year hiatus.

ced1106 wrote:

Asterios wrote:
.
the gathering of evidence is not hard, just bring together the kickstarter and the current state law, hell I don't need a lawyer to do that with my Paralegal degree, its easy plus I have access to a legal library and my Black's Law Dictionary

So have you contacted Rick and his lawyer to offer your services? I often read about upset backers on various projects saying they're going to take legal action that will actual accomplish something, but that's about as far as they get.

ummm I am Rick

ced1106 wrote:
fwiw, To follow up on Morgan's post, I think it's pretty common for creators to produce units for retail and backers at the same time, because it's more efficient than doing two production runs. Of course, as you cited, if the creator mismanages the project by overestimating retail demand, then he's stuck with inventory and no cash for shipping to backers nor for further production (no money left to make models for later waves). But, while it's "questionable" to spend KS funds to create retail product with the assumption that this will generate cash (heck, I thought that was SOP!), I've yet to read anything that suggests backers can legally do anything about this. But if anyone can cite any actual crowdfunding articles that specifically address this, let me know. Thanks.

spending money for additional stock, while not illegal, not being able to deliver on product already paid for is illegal.

The issue is my personal opinion is PB spent KS money on printing the NG books, and paying bills for the company while spending the bulk on the KS itself, problem is with that bulk $150K (according to Kevin) was spent on just shipping, then there was reserve time a couple times at the factory, there was over priced over sized space at GC there were Con exclusives, essentially if an accountant went thru PB's books on this KS they would shake their heads and cry, PB has no experiance of how to use such an amount of money, they think ok a few bucks to get the NG books out, a few bucks for the GC booth a few bucks here and there, thinking they got over 1Mil. but those few bucks add up real quick and before you know it, your out of money and have more stock you need to design and produce and no money to do it, do you tell the backers and possibly cause a rioting mob to burn down PB? or do you mislead them and stall them and hope the funds come in some way or somehow?

Guess which choice PB took.

 Mike1975 wrote:

 n815e wrote:
I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).

I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!

Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....

the whole points system needs to be redone, from Macross thru. thats whats throwing off your numbers, is your basing it off of the Macross stuff, you need to redo that and start from scratch.

Asterios wrote:
the issue I have with this is, who the hell said they bought cars or boats or stock or? I don't recall anyone saying they used KS funds for these things, for keeping the lights on and for the NG books yes, that has been speculated since it was considered very interesting as soon as they would have gotten the money from KS, they were able to start printing and shipping the NG books, like I said suspicious, especially after a 2 year hiatus.

It's been joked about both on the kickstarter comments as well as here on dakka. From just a few pages back:

Merijeek wrote:
Hey, can't blame Kevin on that one. The White Knights (in ANY Kickstarter) always break that out as their first line of defense.

"The creator doesn't owe you ANYTHING YOU ENTITLED LOSER! This is a gift based on a dream. If it all got spent on hookers and blow it doesn't matter because they don't owe you anything!!!!1!1!"

Hookers and blow. Now, obviously (to us) that is a joke but Palladium has chosen to respond to a joke instead of the hundreds of comments postulating that they've tied down kickstarter funds in other ancillary things like RETAIL product and two years worth of wasted salaries, fees, and storage that they never budgeted for and that should have been paid for with their own private funds.


On a side note, if anyone is interested in buying some UEDF NOS stuff (basically the rulebook and UEDF starter contents plus 4 more destroids), send me a pm. I'm also selling a painted 3,000+ pt Southern Heavy Gear army as well to sell as a complete lot.

 Mike1975 wrote:

 n815e wrote:
I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).

I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!

Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....

You could probably have Invid Fighters be in units of only three, since they are an elite unit type.

thinking about what amount of stock palladium ordered and still have left over you also have to consider what their manufacturers minimum order was and what the price break was for units in addition to the minimum order

If the only ordered the minimum that would be a ok no matter how many they have left over

if they ordered more it would depend on quite how good a deal they got for the extras (and whether they used general company funds rather than KS cash).. smart businesses keep the KS cash flow separate.. whether Palladium did or not I guess we'll see if their books ever get examined

 warboss wrote:

Asterios wrote:
the issue I have with this is, who the hell said they bought cars or boats or stock or? I don't recall anyone saying they used KS funds for these things, for keeping the lights on and for the NG books yes, that has been speculated since it was considered very interesting as soon as they would have gotten the money from KS, they were able to start printing and shipping the NG books, like I said suspicious, especially after a 2 year hiatus.

It's been joked about both on the kickstarter comments as well as here on dakka. From just a few pages back:

Merijeek wrote:
Hey, can't blame Kevin on that one. The White Knights (in ANY Kickstarter) always break that out as their first line of defense.

"The creator doesn't owe you ANYTHING YOU ENTITLED LOSER! This is a gift based on a dream. If it all got spent on hookers and blow it doesn't matter because they don't owe you anything!!!!1!1!"

think that was posted after the update though.

before the update don't think i heard anyone say that, so it construes maybe one of Kevin's fan friends said that was being said, thats the only thing I can think of.

It was but it was to illustrate a point. The comments are out there over two years but they're few and far between and blatantly jokes, not something that the semi-annual real update should be spending precious space addressing.

 warboss wrote:
It was but it was to illustrate a point. The comments are out there over two years but they're few and far between and blatantly jokes, not something that the semi-annual real update should be spending precious space addressing.

well as far as Kevin is concerned misleading and misdirecting is normal instead of the truth.

Well there is this little thing on Narcissism:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201106/how-spot-narcissist

"Narcissists' language and demeanor is often geared toward one objective: to maintain power in an interaction. Psychologist Anita Vangelisti of the University of Texas at Austin found that tactics in the narcissists' toolbox include bragging, refocusing the topic of conversation, making exaggerated hand movements, talking loudly, and showing disinterest by "glazing over" when others speak."

"Because control is so important to narcissists, they can abruptly lose their charm if destabilized or threatened. This two-faced behavior is often the first clue to their true character. They get angry when rejected, overreacting to small slights and punishing those who do not support their grandiose image of themselves. One study even found that when spurned, highly narcissistic individuals "punished" other research participants who had nothing to do with the rejection itself."

"It appears that narcissists seek out people who maintain their high positive self-image, at the same time intentionally avoiding and putting down people who may give them a harsh dose of realism. "Seeking admiration is like a drug for narcissists," notes Back. "In the long run it becomes difficult because others won't applaud them, so they always have to search for new acquaintances from whom they get the next fix."

Anyway, I suppose me offering "a harsh dose of realism" is not appreciated for what it is intended.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
thinking about what amount of stock palladium ordered and still have left over you also have to consider what their manufacturers minimum order was and what the price break was for units in addition to the minimum order

If the only ordered the minimum that would be a ok no matter how many they have left over

if they ordered more it would depend on quite how good a deal they got for the extras (and whether they used general company funds rather than KS cash).. smart businesses keep the KS cash flow separate.. whether Palladium did or not I guess we'll see if their books ever get examined

Yeah, we have no idea where the Economy of Scale benefits were with regards to manufacturing and shipping. Working with mass production can be weird, and you end up in situations where the setup is so much more expensive than the materials and labour that for an extra 10% you can get like 600% more stuff (hyperbole for emphasis, but I know people who had things made and paid minimal amounts to get massive extra quantities for passing over more efficient break points in their pricing structure).

Obviously they wouldn't have gotten this stuff for free, but for all we know it was a sizable enough savings to justify it (and if they've spent X dollars of Backer funding for the Backer stuff, tacking on the retail as well for a fraction of that could've been the wise business move).

We'll probably never know, but I just find the 'maybe they spent it all on core boxes!' argument unlikely. If CSI can at least break even at $50 for a core box (or take a slight loss to bring people in), presumably that's at least vaguely around the whole sale price, which would mean that even with a fire sale in the $40-50 range, presumably they could recoup their costs or even make a profit. Basically, product in hand isn't that big a deal unless storage costs are a problem or it simply cannot be sold at any price. Even then, taking a loss in a *steep* sale (like, $25-40) is still a minor loss over potential, but still probably at or around their out of pocket costs. If anything, the main thing holding them back there, as I see it, would be that going too low would make certain people *lose their minds* and decry that the sky is, in fact, falling. Yes, the Gencon sale was a bit odd, but whatever, if it brings in some new players and a few Battletech dollars, it is what it is.

Long story short, pallets and pallets of these things could well add up to tens of thousands of dollars in stuff, but that's obviously still a drop in the bucket compared to what they brought in. It could be 100k, I still don't believe they could've zeroed out making less than a dozen sprues and producing/shipping them with ~$1.5m.

Wyrd manages to pull those kinds of figure numbers off yearly (or even every couple of quarters) and nobody is going to call them a titan of the industry. This stuff is expensive, I'm sure they made some expensive mistakes, but overbuying on Wave 1 retail and being broke doing it (even together) just doesn't seem to quite add up.

I think the more likely and reasonable situation could be simply being short on cash, not broke, but tens of thousands (or a couple hundred thousand) from going full swing. Which isn't quite as dire, but as the months tick by (with expenses ongoing), making that up in t-shirts, mouse pads, and pencils is going to take a lot longer than I think a lot of people are going to accept (assuming they're even making headway of course. They could even just be breaking even, in which case all these sales to turn excess stock into cash had better be going a long bloody way.

 Talizvar wrote:
Well there is this little thing on Narcissism:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201106/how-spot-narcissist

*snip*

Anyway, I suppose me offering "a harsh dose of realism" is not appreciated for what it is intended.

The important thing is that he has fan friends and employees who keep him grounded.

http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=142888

You know, a guy who tells it like it is and doesn’t blow sunshine up your behind. So when he says something is good, you know it’s good. Heck, all the guys are like that.

Funny how they never say it completely sucks gak... which has been the case both with their RPGs at times and this robotech project. Talizvar, you need to tell him that the warm feeling he has on his face after getting such honest feedback from his fan friends and employees isn't sunshine.

I had to go look - the whole quote is even better and more confusing?

That’s great to hear, and it’s nice to have a cheerleader like Alex in your corner. You know, a guy who tells it like it is and doesn’t blow sunshine up your behind. So when he says something is good, you know it’s good. Heck, all the guys are like that. Some days I wish they were yes-men, but not really. I like getting honest criticism and feedback even when it is harsh at times. It’s what helps me keep the level of quality strong. Of course, I tend to be my harshest critic, so it’s good to know I’m hitting on all cylinders when I’m so not sure myself.

Huh.

You might be tempted to think he was kidding about that whole "my harshest critic" and "I like getting honest criticism" comments given the date of the post but he's not.

Has he ever considered Palladium might require a staff member who's job is sales?
I'm guessing they're used to selling their product to fan friends. Surely it must be obvious that to sell a new product you need someone generating sales?

Well um, Warboss, I never went looking at his forum posts.
Thanks, it is worse than I thought.
Classic Narc. 101.. sheesh!
Yeah, now I know he will have a special hatred for the vocal "minority".
Oh well, I have locked horns with bigger than him so we shall see how it goes.
Worse thing is, he may look at the controversy as a good thing. The longer no hammer drops the bolder he will get.
It may only get uglier.
Post lots of critical negativity or just go straight into ignore other than consumer actions. <sigh>

Joyboozer wrote:
Has he ever considered Palladium might require a staff member who's job is sales?

Of course he has. How could you think that he has been in business for 34 years with simple stuff like going over his head? Luckily for all of us, the guy who delivers pizza for Domino's in that area is a HUGE rifts fan and will be willing to take over global sales for minimum wage (with a 90 unpaid volunteer period first of course packing boxes and sweeping floors to properly evalute his skills).

Well, Palladium did use to do a lot of advertising in Dragon Magazine (full page ads sometimes), that was how I first learned of them. But that was back in the 80's and 90's and likely Kevin put the ads together himself. But he was getting his product out to folks beyond his fan-friends/KS mailing list.

Question is, beyond their own magazine Rifter, where WOULD there be a good place for them to advertise their wares? All the gaming magazines I know of are defunct, TV's too expensive and it's not like they'd get the attention of Forbes or other such magazines like D&D has.

I did think it was funny that in the UEDF book, there's advertisements in the back from two other publishers on the last two pages of the book.

 n815e wrote:

 Mike1975 wrote:

 n815e wrote:
I'd think that to stay in theme, squadrons should be in groups of 9 (3 squads of 3).

I originally did this but then you'd have squads at 1/3 and not 1/2 the size of a squadron. Plus one squad of 1 Green and 8 standard blues with sleds would be 105 points!

Well, that might not be that bad...but 9 Invid Fighters would be 275 points that way.....

You could probably have Invid Fighters be in units of only three, since they are an elite unit type.

So out of curiosity I put up a poll on the FB page on this. Right now there are 9 for Squadrons of 6 and 3 for Squadrons on 9. Here are a couple slides for comparison. Keep in mind that this is the cheapest of the Squadrons and it still reaches 105 points....

It is funny the odd parallels of PB vs Games Workshop.
Except that GW has a bit more money to play with and are good at plastic molds... well there ARE some similarities in management styles: no advertising and do not listen to the fan-base they will only make you choose wrong.

By Request....thoughts? I'll still have the plain backgrounds and no backgrounds available to print.

Since the models are smaller and more powerful, SC games could feature more points with about the same number of models as Macross games.